Codemasters' Rod Cousens Part 1

But I think it takes time. First of all, if you're in the top spot, nothing is forever. Hanging on to it isn't easy - so anyone that just takes that as a given is misguided; because there's an awful lot of work done by these companies.

Don't forget we can all witness over the years.... I can remember people telling me that the end of FIFA was nigh, and that Pro Evolution Soccer was where it was at, but I would say over the last two years EA has put clear water between them.

When they're down, and they're a wounded animal, they're never more dangerous. I think the version of Medal of Honor that's gone out is not how you should judge EA; judge it when they've had another two or three goes at it.

The quality of the product, in six or eight titles - I'm not a critic, and I think that's a failing of our industry. Because we're in an industry that we should all want to grow, and you need those successes.

They've had their pain, but there isn't a software house in the world that hasn't. That's the way it is - there isn't a traditional magazine publisher that hasn't had its pain.

We see Flashpoint as a long term franchise that will not only continue to improve in quality, but will also broaden in terms of its reach and appeal. We do want to sit in a different space to where Call of Duty and Medal of Honor is.

There's a fanbase called CodeM of about 2 million people, and if I got one message from them when I walked into this company, it was to create another Flashpoint. So we did - we embarked on, brought it in-house and did it using EGO technology.

Was it everything we wanted it to be? No, it wasn't. But was it a disappointment? No, it wasn't. I'd say it was a very good first attempt of where we're going to take it.

We know we do good racing, so how are we going to compete? We can compete with 1-1.5 million units on Flashpoint. That's good for us, compared to your point about the Medal of Honor budgets. We're comfortable where we sit as a company.

We believe we've got racing - now, if I'm some of my competition and I've looked at the performance of Blur and Split/Second, I'd rather have my problems.

Yes - you can be very good, but to get into that zone right at the top, it's that 0.01 of a per cent. These racing games can be good, and they can give the consumer a decent experience - but to come in and take that spot, which is where I believe we sit, is that 0.01 per cent that's the hardest to attain.

We will do it again - don't forget that with F1 2010 that came out of a studio that was an action studio. That's testimony to the user-friendliness of EGO, that they've come out with an 8.5-9 out of 10 game. And it will only get better.

Where we sit - the underlying technology, where we can take racing, whether that's F1, GRiD or DiRT... and now what we're going to do with action - plus alongside all that we've going to give them brand extensions.

We'll do Formula One as a browser-based game; we're going to do another Formula One game as well - so we'll extend these brands, and you'll see us do that in Flashpoint, in Cricket, in DiRT and things like that... We only have to do five games per year.